Washington, D.C. -- The Competitive Telecommunications Association (CompTel) today responded to the Supreme Court's decision which upholds market entry strategies that would foster the development of local telecommunications competition and which affirms the authority of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to set prices for local access.

"Today's ruling sends a clear message to incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs)," said H. Russell Frisby, Jr. "That is, the ILECs must stop trying to avoid the inevitable and open their local networks to new competitive entrants. The decision underscores the need for the ILECs to work more closely with CompTel's members to fulfill the goals and objectives of the 1996 Telecommunications Act."

The Supreme Court also ordered the FCC to revisit the question of which network elements should be made available under the "necessity" and "impairment" standards as defined by the 1996 Telecommunications Act. "Until the characteristics of the platform are defined, the FCC will be hard-pressed to approve any applications to provide services across local access transport areas (LATAs) under Section 271 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act," Frisby noted.

Although the Bell companies and certain state regulatory agencies claimed that the FCC exceeded its jurisdiction in its August 1996 ruling on local competition and interconnection pricing, the Supreme Court upheld the FCC's authority to set local telephone rates, overturning an October, 1997 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit which rejected the FCC's interconnection rules.

Specifically, CompTel applauded the Supreme Court for:

• rejecting the ILECs' claims that network elements must be part of the physical facilities and equipment used to provide local exchange service;

• upholding the FCC's conclusion that the ILECs must make network elements available to requesting carriers regardless of whether they own any of their own facilities;

• affirming that ILECs are not allowed to disassemble previously combined network elements and then apply recombination fees on new entrants; and

• reversing the Eighth Circuit appeals court's decision to vacate the FCC's so-called "pick and choose" rules. These rules, now reinstated by the Supreme Court, require ILECs to make available to any requesting carrier any individual interconnection, service, or network element arrangement contained in any interconnection agreement that has previously been negotiated by an ILEC upon the same terms and conditions as those provided in the previously-negotiated agreement.